Winter… Deep fried food we indulge in, and then shout that it is no sin!

And who can ever call this piece of beauty a sin?! I am talking about spicy potato balls coated in spicy gram flour batter and then deep fried to perfection, a humble Batate/Aloo Bonda! We Indians have weakness for street foods. From simple roasted peanuts to complex flavoured Chaats, from healthy snacking on roasted corn on cob to deep fried indulgence of Pakrora/Pakoda and Bajjis, we love them all! Come Monsoons and winters, my Amma would bring out her shining copper deep frying pan and make wonderful array of deep fried goodies! Although the winter in India, especially the place where I grew up, is much milder than the ones here in UK, the joy of biting into crisp shells of Puri and Pakoda was the same or sometimes even more as it was shared in a company of loving family and friends.

And it was the same wonderful feeling I had when we visited our family in India in December. We spent two days at my in-law’s farm house and indulged in traditional, simple homemade goodies cooked by our family cook. While the men in the family got busy with business and political talks, the baccha (kid) party were busy playing with (more like torturing) two sets of puppies and kittens in the garden. The ladies in our family stretched their legs and got ready to look forward next two days of no-cooking vacations. I took out my camera and went for a long walk in my in-law’s estate, stopping in between to enjoy the unspoiled greenery around and breathing in the fresh air devoid of any dust, smoke and pollution! Little did I knew that it will turn out to be one of the best holidays ever which had everything; rest, free time, laughter, entertainment, great company and amazing food!!! Move over health spas and five star hotels, you can never beat the amazing time I had at our own small piece of heaven! (I promise I will share the pictures shortly)

Deep fried goodness ~ Batate/Aloo Bonda

One of the things our family cook made for evening was these wonderful Batate/Aloo Bondas. They are slightly different from other Aloo Bonda which uses only the mashed potatoes as these have some other vegetables in them. While our family cook was preparing them, I followed him like a shadow and clicked few photographs in between playing peek-a-boo with my little nieces, nephews and my Lil Dumpling. I guess they had a gala time as I could be easily spotted some where around the cook with my bulky camera in hand! Well, a food blogger will always be a food blogger who just feels it’s her duty to take pictures of food whenever possible ;) And when the food in question happens to be one of the best tasting ones, there is no way I could just walk past it without taking few notes from the cook and sharing it with you, my reader friends. So here is one of the recipes, recipe for Aloo/Batate Bonda, I managed to get from our family cook. Although the original recipe was for two dozen people, the one I have it here makes around 12 delicious Aloo/Batate Bonda. Make them when it’s pouring outside or freezing cold. Well, make it even when it boiling outside and indulge in some deep fried goodies as Aloo/Batate Bonda can be made for any occasion and we don’t need to wait for right occasion to treat ourselves from time to time! :)

Next heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan and add mustard seeds to it. When mustard seeds start to crackle, add urad dal, dried red chilli, hing and curry leaves to it. Transfer the tadka/tempering to mashed potatoes just when lentils start to turn golden brown.

Add salt to taste and mix all the ingredients well.

Next start making lime sized balls and arrange them on a large plate until needed.

Prepare the Batter:

Sift gram flour to a large mixing bowl. To this add rice flour, red chilli powder/paprika and salt to taste and mix them well.

Next add water (about ¾ cup) and whisk to make pancake like batter. Add more or less water depending on the amount of gram flour used. If you find the batter too thin, sprinkle 1-2 tbsp of gram flour to get the required consistency. Similarly if you find the batter to be too thick, add little more water and whisk them well.

Deep Frying:

Heat oil in a deep pan/kadai. To check if the oil is hot enough, add a drop of batter to the oil. If the oil is sufficiently hot then the batter will sizzle and float to the surface. And if the oil is not heated enough then the batter will sink to the bottom of the pan. Make sure that you are cooking on a medium flame for the Aloo Bonda to cook thoroughly.

Once the oil is hot enough, dip individual spiced potato balls in batter and make sure that it is evenly coated. Carefully arrange them in single layer in the pan and fry them in batches. I usually fry 3-5 at a time but you can increase or decrease the amount depending on the size of the kadai and also the amount of oil taken.

Fry them till they turn golden brown and crisp and then transfer then to a large bowl or plate lined with paper towel to absorb excess oil.

Repeat the steps until you finish deep frying all the Aloo Bondas.

Serve these delicious and spicy Aloo/Batate Bondas with any coconut based chutneys or with plain good old tomato sauce/ketchup and enjoy!

Sia’s Notes:

To check if the oil is hot enough, add a drop of batter to the oil. If the oil is sufficiently hot then the batter will sizzle and float to the surface. And if the oil is not heated enough then the batter will sink to the bottom of the pan.

Make sure that you are cooking on a medium flame for the Aloo/Batate Bonda to cook thoroughly.

lovely pictures and yummy bondaaaaaaaasss. remembering my grandma,she also preparing like this and we were watching when she taking outside. mouthwatering bondas to eat.our childhood days picture coming while seeing the big kadai and taking out bondas. thank u to share about it.

I found this post though Pinterest. The photo was so beautiful that I just had to come here to read the recipe! Love it! And love your site :-).

I would like to invite you to share this post (and your other posts :-) ) on a new photo based recipe sharing site that launched in May. The idea is simple: all recipe photographs are published within minutes of submission. And, of course, the images link back to the author's site.

It's called RecipeNewZ (with Z) - http://recipenewz.com

I hope you get a chance to visit and to share some of your delicious posts with our viewers. It would be a pleasure to have you on board :-)

Lovely job on this post! The pictures look so culturally authentic, and very artistic, makes me feel like I'm there watching her prepare the food, waiting as the different spices waft through the air. I can't wait to try these!

Namaste! I am Sia and welcome to Monsoon Spice, my virtual home. Thank you for all your comments, inputs and feedback. I really appreciate the valuable time you spent browsing through my recipe repertoire.

I hope you have found what you are looking for today. Feel free to leave any questions or queries you have on the recipes posted here. If you have any recipe requests, please drop a line at Ask Sia page. I will try to respond to all your queries as soon as possible to best of my knowledge.

I welcome all your valuable inputs and constructive criticism as long as it is meant to help and improve the blog. I reserve the right to delete any comments that are rude, abusive, written with the intent to advertise, contain profanity or considered spam.

I hope that you will stop by again to read my rants, learn new recipes and share your ideas. Have a good look around and enjoy your time here. Thank you once again!

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About Sia

Born in India and raised in fun and food loving family, I currently reside in UK with my better half and my two babies, five years old son and nine years old food blog. My cooking style has strong root in Indian culture and at the same time embraces the world cuisine with equal passion. With never ending love for food, spice and life, I am passionate about cooking and making Indian food less intimidating, healthy and easy to cook which reflects in my blog Monsoon Spice which has been ranked one among Top Indian food blogs. Read more…

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